


Time After Time

by within_a_dream



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Soulbond, Loss of Soulmate, Multi, Soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-08 00:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: The first thing Lucy felt when she stepped off the Lifeboat was a gaping hole in her chest where Amy used to be.The second was the new, impossible bonds.





	Time After Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArgylePirateWD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgylePirateWD/gifts).



> Thank you to telm_393 for betaing!
> 
> And thanks to ArgylePirateWD for requesting my favorite (and tragically never-before-written) Timeless ship

The first thing Lucy felt when she stepped off the Lifeboat was a gaping hole in her chest where Amy used to be. It was bad enough that their bond had been muffled while Lucy was travelling; the past felt foreign enough without the feeling that Amy was on the other side of a metaphysical wall. After a lifetime of togetherness, of feeling the other’s emotions clear as a conversation, the laggy Skype-call blurriness of their bond while Lucy was in the past was unsettling. But the complete and utter blankness that she faced now, like someone had hollowed out a part of her chest, was _wrong_. They’d been bonded since before Amy could talk, and now Lucy couldn’t feel anything.

The second thing she felt was a confusion that seemed to have taken up residence in her ribcage. Not hers, although Lucy had enough to be confused about. This was foreign, a vine curling around her sternum, just a bit too new, too out-of-place. It reminded her of the first rush of feelings when her sister came home from the hospital. Looking around, she saw Wyatt frown and Rufus press a hand to his chest, and something clicked into place.

“Does the travel affect soulbonds?” Her voice came out louder than she meant it to, with an edge to it that she hoped no one else would  catch. (Rufus and Wyatt would anyway, the bond made sure of that, but at least she could keep her panic from the others.)

With that, she saw the realization dawn in Rufus’s eyes. “Anthony isn’t bonded, and neither am I.” His lips bent into a frown, and Lucy felt a twinge of sorrow. “ Or…I wasn’t.”

Lucy ran her thumb over her locket. “I need to get home.”

 

She _needed_ to get home, but they  wouldn’t let her leave until after the debrief, which seemed to take an eternity. The longer Lucy stayed in the lab, the more her panic grew, and she could tell that Rufus and Wyatt were feeling it too. Rufus showed it more, fidgeting and biting at his lip, but although Wyatt was making a valiant effort to hide the new bond’s effects, she could still see his jaw clenching. Lucy tried to pull back on the feelings, at least keep the worry from Wyatt and Rufus, but despite her efforts, the panic welled up again. How worried would Amy be, sitting at home thinking her sister was dead?

The alternative, that _Amy_ had died (or something worse), never crossed her mind. If her trip on the Lifeboat had given her two bonds, why couldn’t it have taken one away? And then she ran through  the door of her mother’s house shouting for her sister, telling her that she was all right, something strange had happened but she was fine, and her mother walked out of the kitchen and things began making a horrifying sort of sense.

She fell asleep still wearing the locket, afraid to take it off in case this last piece of Amy crumbled away as well, and spent the night tossing and turning as sadness and anxiety and wonder rushed through her, each emotion just off-kilter enough that she could tell they weren’t hers.

 

The second trip was worse than the first, three people’s nausea and nerves bouncing around the Lifeboat and nearly making Lucy gag. At least it drowned out the pity.

She shouldn’t blame them, for the feelings. Rufus had never had a bond, and Lucy remembered the months after her sister had been born, the synchronized crying fits and the interrupted naptimes. It must have been even more confusing to be plunged into it as an adult, and then sent off to pilot a time machine with your bondmates. But she could feel his pity rising up in her throat, and she hated the taste. And Wyatt…Wyatt was sad, an aching sadness that mixed with Lucy’s and made her want to scream.

 

Lucy was a ball of nerves the entire trip, as were the others. Her _bondmates,_ she should call them, but the word still sat wrong. They’d barely had time to _talk_ to each other, and these bonds  had sprung up out of something inorganic. If they  had formed like bonds were supposed to, if Lucy had bonded as soon as she, Rufus, and Wyatt were gathered together yesterday (was it only yesterday?) in Mason Industries, she…it might have taken some time, but she could have accepted it. But to have Amy ripped away and then be given two strangers as a sad sort of consolation prize? That was intolerable.

And the work was hard enough as it was, without feeling every single thing that happened to the other two. Lucy looked a nervous wreck; it was amazing she was able to convince Robert Lincoln she was an actress and not an escapee from a lunatic asylum. Rufus didn’t look any better, although Lucy hoped it would pass off as soldier’s heart. Wyatt looked fine, but all of them could feel the stress and grief and anger roiling in his gut.

She felt it when Rufus was manhandled, they felt it when she ran into Robert and nearly died of a heart attack,  and she felt it (oh _God,_ she felt it) when Wyatt was shot. For the first time in her life, Lucy thought about what it would feel like if her bondmate died.

“You’d live,” Wyatt said when they’d gotten him up to a bed. “Your bondmate dying, I mean. It hurts like hell every minute they’re alive, and then it hurts more when they’re gone, but you’d live.”

“Maybe it was lucky that Amy just disappeared.” Lucy didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until afterwards, and _oh_ , she was torn between the ache of her sister’s loss and the joy of new bonds (even if they weren’t true bonds).

“It’s the emptiness that’s the worst,” Wyatt said, projecting an apology.

“Uh, guys,” Rufus said, “one of us is bleeding to death here.”

Between the pain in her side, the way her head swam at the blood (and the _sounds_ ), and the effort it took not to scream, Lucy didn’t register the _us_ until she’d left for the theater.

“Us,” she whispered to herself, and felt Rufus and Wyatt smile along with her.

 

Their nerves were all frayed by the time they returned to the lab. Before Lucy could say anything, Wyatt was rushed off to a doctor and Rufus had drifted off to talk to Mason, and she was left alone with her thoughts. This might not be a true bond, but it certainly behaved like one. It brought its share of pain, especially given their ridiculous job, but she couldn’t help but remember the “us” and how much brighter happiness felt when shared three ways.

Maybe she didn’t mind this after all.

 

After Lucy met her fiancé, her phone buzzed with texts from Rufus and Wyatt, in quick succession.

 _I’m fine_ , she texted back. _Just engaged, apparently._

 _???_ Rufus replied, while Wyatt sent an inscrutable emoji (and she’d never have thought he’d be one for emoticons, but it seemed they were all learning new things about each other).

Several explanatory texts later, they both abandoned her to Noah, who was so incredibly nice that she almost felt bad ducking his kisses.

 

The group text was the beginning of the end of pretending they were just normal coworkers. The end of the end was the incredibly shitty day that started with Lucy making her fiancé (it still felt wrong to say) think she’d been replaced by a pod person, and ended with tensions running high in about five different directions between the three of them. The thing was, it was hard to stay mad at someone when you could feel exactly how bad they felt about the argument.

“I’m sick of fighting,” Rufus said, finally interrupting their wordless argument. “And I’m sick of texting. I’ve got a king-size bed if you want to spend the night.”

No one would frown on it, knowing they were bonded, but Lucy thought of Noah at his own home and felt a twinge of guilt. Not enough to keep her from imagining the three of them in bed together with a warmth in her chest, though--that surprised her, although the way Rufus’s laugh echoed across their bond made her think she should have realized this was a romantic sort of bond earlier.

“I have to take care of something first. Send me the address?”

“It’s not cheating if you don’t remember dating the guy,” Wyatt said, but with a smile on his face. “We’ll meet you there.”

 

It felt like the most natural thing in the world, curled up on the bed between Rufus and Wyatt. She’d claimed middle spoon, pleading ‘bad breakup’, and although Rufus had protested he seemed happy enough laying his head on Lucy’s shoulder and holding Wyatt’s hand.

“And he was so _nice_ about it! How did mirror-verse me end up with Mr. Perfect Fiancé?”

“At least you’re not bonded,” Rufus said.

“Two bonded boyfriends is enough, thank you very much.”

They all froze for a moment, and Lucy could feel her words rattling around in Rufus and Wyatt’s heads.  

“It’s a good thing we’re indispensable,” Wyatt said, “or we’d be fired for fraternization.”

“ _You’d_ be fired,” Rufus said. “Mason couldn’t care less who I sleep with, as long as I’m not doing it in the Lifeboat.”

“That’s an idea, though,” Wyatt replied.

Lucy kicked him. “Don’t even think about it.”


End file.
